Chapter Text
The frozen landscape was soundless, not even a stray winter bird chirped, as you surveyed the small compound. Fresh snow was suspended over every tree and surface. The crumbling facades of the shacks all dusted in a hazy white. Your breath lingered in the air as you exhaled.
“Feels off,” you spoke into your comm.
“Agreed,” the gruff, Manchester voice responded through your earpiece.
Simon “Ghost” Riley. His callsign was fitting for a man as stealthy and menacing as he. On missions, The Ghost moved like smoke, an apparition with a penchant for death. Around camp, you’d feel his eyes on you, but then you’d turn around and there’d be no one there. And, like his callsign, he’d began haunting your waking thoughts too.
You can’t remember when it started—it’s only been a few months since you joined the task force. But since you started working together, had been assigned this mission together, Simon “Ghost” Riley had infiltrated your head—marked by one too many lingering stares and unnecessarily brushes of the hand when exchanging briefs. He’d insidiously worked his way into your thoughts, intentionally or otherwise: what did he look like under the mask, how would his calloused hands feel like under your shirt, what sounds would he make pinned between your thighs. It unnerved you. You didn’t mix business with pleasure. It was a susceptibility.
Your contracts were for your legendary tracking skills, propensity to gather intelligence, and ability to nail a target two and a half klicks away with a single shot. If someone needed a HVT stalked and scoped without leaving a trace, you were their go to. Which was how Kate Laswell reached out to you in the first place. She said there was a team, the 141, who needed help with a particular illusive target. Kept slipping through their fingers. The pay was good (of course, coming from the CIA), so you agreed to hunt for them. What you hadn't accounted for was their towering, beautiful phantom: Simon.
“Walk me through it, Jag.” The Brit’s voice cracked over the comm, interrupting your thoughts. Jag; Jaguar. You ignored the way your name rolled off his tongue.
She needs a callsign, Ghost.
Why do I need a callsign?
Cause everyone on the team gets a callsign! And it has to match. Can’t be something dumb, like Barbie.
Why can’t I be Barbie?
Cause you’re not blonde. Take me for example: got mine for my aptitude to clean a room, all spick and span like. And Ghost’s is… well, just look at the bastard.
Fine. Then what’s my callsign?
Mantis.
Nah, doesn’t fit her.
Jaguar? …You know, cause you’re smart, stealthy.
A smooth ride?
Dangerous.
Jesus, you two. Alright. Jaguar it is.
Your frozen fingers pressed your comm. “It’s too quiet, Ghost. We saw vehicles on the drive up, but there’s nobody in the town, not even a single light on.”
Months of hard work and intel pointed to this village on the outskirts of Kokshetau. The perfect place to lay low, forgotten by the world. The perfect place for an ambush.
“It shouldn’t be this quiet.”
Ghost was on the rooftop three buildings to your left, assessing the area too. You’d parked the jeep a mile and a half outside of town, in the forest, and trekked the remainder of the way through the bleakness. Every shell of a building you passed in this liminal village was vacant; it was like walking through an unsettling dream.
“Intel said he’d be here, right?” Ghost spoke. “You and Laswell traced him to these coordinates?”
“Yes.”
“So he’s gotta be here.” Ghost breathed into the comm. “I’m gonna to do an interior sweep. Eyes sharp; watch my six.”
Your thumb pressed down. “Copy.”
Tactically, it made the most sense. You were both snipers, but Ghost was a bear of a man. He towered over you and was build like a god. He’d hold up a lot better in a close-quarters ambush. Plus, this was his mission with the 141. You’d been key in tracking him here, but your specialty was picking off targets from afar. They wouldn’t even feel the tack of the shot that painted the snow with their pink matter. Wouldn’t hear the bullet that would breach the stillness of this place. But that only worked if they were out in the open, or visible through the decay of the buildings.
You followed Ghost through your scope as he climbed down from the roof. His winter camo was an efficient cover. It hooded his black balaclava with signature skull well. Ghost maneuvered through the buildings like a shadow.
“Clear,” he whispered through the mic with each sweep.
You flexed your hands to keep the blood circulating and the cold from seeping in. The fleece gaiter irritated your reddening nose. He’d gone through three buildings already. Patience was a strong suit of yours, but this waiting and watching left a burning in your tense shoulders. Part of you wished there was more backup, but Price wanted to keep it lean and quiet. Don’t want to spook the target with three in a car, should anyone be watching. It was a shit idea when there was already a towering, beast of a man wearing tactical gear and a skull for a face driving.
Ghost entered the fourth building below.
It was two stories, which left your heart beating a little faster than before. You were timing his previous sweeps. They were all one-story structures but Ghost was thorough and efficient; each sweep was just under a minute.
Your eyes flicked to the watch on your wrist. One minute, twenty three seconds. You didn’t have eyes on him from this angle.
“Come on,” you breathed quietly.
Two twelve.
“Come on…” you repeated, a little louder this time. You were holding your breath; knuckles white under the gloves.
You pulled back from the scope and scanned around the building. Stillness.
Two twenty six.
“Ghost, come in,” you whispered into the comm.
Three fifteen.
“Ghost, do you copy?” Blood pounded through your ears, filling the silence.
Three forty eight.
“Ghost, come in.”
Three fifty seven.
Unlucky, unlucky four.
The back door to the building burst open as a man—not your target and not Ghost—stumbled out. Bright crimson painted the snow beneath him. He was crawling now. You pulled the trigger. The sound of birds fluttering echoed in the distance.
“Fuck!” you cursed under your breath; gloved hands moved the sniper to your back. Your feet carried you quickly off the roof as you landed with a muffled thud; nimble hands reached for the pistol strapped to your thigh, quickly screwing on its silencer.
Quietly, you rushed to the back door, stepping over the body and all the red. Ghost’s knife was embedded deep into his torso. You pressed your shoulder against the crumbling facade. Sharp breathe in. You whipped your pistol into the room as your eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was a body in a pool of blood near the front door, and a trail from the man you shot leading upstairs.
You stuck to the shadows, keeping silent as you peered up the steps. There was scuffling above. Deep breathe out. Your boots crunched over the concrete bits littering the stairs.
In your line of work, a second was the precipice between a grazed bicep or splatter of the head; between bleeding out or staying alive. So when you reached the top of the of the stairs, you had exactly one second to process everything before your fired your pistol twice: one to the shoulder, one to the head.
Ghost was bleeding all over the floor, struggling to right himself from his post-strangulation daze. Your target was supine next to him, twitching the last seconds of his life away. He was a hulk of a man, like the lieutenant. Quite the fight. You scurried to Ghost.
“Got me good on the head,” he wheezed. A concrete cinderblock was crumbled on the floor around him. Ghost’s skull-plate mask was cracked and there was blood dripping over his left eye. You surveyed the rest of his body: stab wounds in his bicep, a knife lodged in his right thigh.
You reached into your vest to pull out bandages to tourniquet the arm and leg. Your eyes stayed on the stairs as you synched it over his thick clothes, hoping it was tight enough.
“Knife stays in until we get you to a medic.” You reached for his mask. His large hand gripped your wrist with intense pressure.
“Mask stays on.”
Blood already darkened the fabric of his mask. You just hoped it would clot against the cloth. He released you as you reached into your vest and procured a vial.
“Need you to take this.”
Ghost grunted as he lifted the bottom of his balaclava clumsily and swallowed its contents. “What is it?”
“Amphetamine. Can you stand?”
“Christ,” he slurred.
You shifted under his right shoulder. “On three,” you wrapped his massive arm over you. He was heavy. “One, two, three.”
He groaned as you got him up. The sound etched itself into your brain. In any other situation, you’d beg him to make that sound again. For a split second you wondered if that’s what he sounded like when he—god, what the fuck was wrong with you?
“Fffuck!” he ground out. His weight pressed into your shoulder. Blood was soddening his pants where the knife was lodged.
“I need your help down these stairs, Ghost,” you said solidly as he hobbled with you. “Gonna be a gentleman and help me out?”
“‘M always a gentleman.”
The drug must have kicked in because he wasn’t leaning as heavily on you as before. You radioed Price as you struggled down the steps.
“Price,” you strained, “target is down. Need an emergency EVAC. Ghost is in bad shape.”
“Copy that,” his voice crackled over the radio. “Can you reach the backup rendezvous? I can’t land a chopper that close to the village.”
It was just under half a klick away. You looked at Ghost. He grunted. You doubted.
“Copy, on our way,” you confirmed, finally reaching the last step before the solid ground of the first floor.
Ghost was more coherent now; the adrenaline pumped its way through his veins. You helped him toward the back door that was still ajar. Dull winter light from the outside illuminated its silhouette on the floor.
“Stay,” you whispered, gripping the cold pistol again. He leaned heavily against the wall. You peaked your head through the opening.
The crunch of snow gave away the man outside who was surveying the top of the buildings—looking for the sniper. Looking for you. It was a clean shot to the back of the head, and his body crumpled to the snow. You hoped that was the last of them as you grabbed Ghost again.
“Let’s go.”
______
To your surprise, you made it farther than you expected before Ghost started to stumble. A steady trail of red saturated the endless white behind you. It was too much blood.
“Come on, big guy. Almost there.”
He stumbled again, falling into the snow this time. He rolled halfway onto his back.
“Jus’ need a second,” Ghost groaned out. Heavy lids and blonde lashes obscured those pretty brown eyes of his.
“No, no, no, Simon,” you bent over and whispered, “we gotta keep going, yeah? We’re almost there.”
He made an attempt to reach for you but his arm flopped like jelly. You hooked your arms under his shoulder and started to drag him through the dense snow.
“Hey, stay with me. Don’t give in to that concussion. That’d be a stupid way to die.”
“Sorry, sweet’eart.” His head started to lull to the side.
“Simon,” you growled as you continued dragging his body. “Eyes open.” Christ, he was so heavy.
“Tryin’.”
“That’s an order,” you huffed.
Your heavy breathing permeated through the silent forest. Time stretched on.
“I…” Simon’s head flopped back against your chest. His lashes fluttered as his eyes desperately tried to focus. Blood clotted over his left eye. “Don’t take orders… from you.”
“You do. When I’m dragging. Your fucking heavy ass. Through the snow.” Each sentence was a struggle. You were 5’6” and nearly 130 pounds of lean prowess. But Simon was a colossus. And dragging his dead weight through the thick snow for the past fifteen minutes had every tendon in your body screaming. Your lungs burned.
In the distance, sounds of the helicopter circling finally breached the trees. You looked behind you. The landing zone was still a couple hundred yards away.
“Stay with me, Simon,” you whispered against the crown of his head. Your quads seared with every backward step.
“Leg’s numb,” he managed.
Not good.
“That’s just the cold.”
You wanted to cry from the fire that encompassed every cell in your body. You were burning up; sweating. Every muscle strained to the max. You looked behind you. Almost there.
Simon’s head lulled forward again.
“Make you a deal,” you panted. The whirring of the helo was louder now. “You stay alive. And I’ll tell you one of my biggest secrets.”
Finally in the clearing, the snow fanned across your back. Two medics rushed from the helicopter toward you with a stretcher. They started strapping Ghost down as you nearly collapsed from overexertion right there. Price’s arm wrapped around you as he hurried you back to the copter, shouting over the comms.
The metal of the floor was cold against your face as you collapsed. The helicopter ascended. Price was hovering over the stretcher, and red crosses on white patches blurred as you finally succumbed to your exhaustion.